A distinctly Californian thriller that packs heavily sentimental and visceral punches.
A dangerous man returns to the Bay Area on family business in Cook’s crime novel, the second in the Midas series.
Mason James, currently a resident of Hermosa Beach, grew up in San Francisco’s East Bay; he’s back in town after he gets word that his father, Max, was mugged. Max was exiting a card room in Emeryville when he was assaulted. On closer inspection, it appears this was no simple robbery, but rather a targeted attack related to organized crime. Max has “lived a life of capability and ruthlessness,” and neither of them are strangers to the world of shady activities. Mason spent more than 20 years as a member of the Unit, “a squad that took care of problems around the world too hot for official channels.” The Unit has had some lingering troubles that have “exploded over the past few months,” but Mason’s main concern at the moment is his father. (Mason may be a little worse for wear, but with his background in boxing and his many California connections, he’s not one to be trifled with.) Max’s problems are not the only thing on Mason’s plate. McKnight Holdings is a legitimate company with an extensive real estate portfolio; Mason has “grown up as a favored cousin in the McKnight empire,” and when he’s asked to look into a problem, he accepts. Recently, the company has come under attack via sophisticated hacking, and someone is showing sudden interest in McKnight’s “farming property in the central valley.” Perhaps Max’s assault and the trouble at McKnight are related in some way?
The story incorporates many setting details, including some history: Readers learn how “San Pablo Avenue ran as a parallel companion to the east side of the San Francisco Bay, covering 20 miles.” The road had “been around since the 1850’s.” Tilden Park is “just over the eastern edge of the Berkeley Hills” and includes, among other features, a vintage merry-go-round. These and many other specific references bring the setting to vivid life. Along with these details come numerous characters, and it’s not always easy to keep track of the many people in Mason’s life—Jonah, Midas, Melvin, Lilly, and Max are just a handful of the names introduced early in the story. (As the narrative progresses, the backgrounds and motivations of these and other players do become clear.) Cook has a distinctive story to tell; Mason may be the rough-and-tumble type, but he’s not just a standard-issue action protagonist. He’s quick with a knife and a gun, but he also moons over Candlestick Park; he admits to still having “some sentimentality from [his] childhood and all those cold afternoons in the swirling winds” at the park. The story includes intriguing flashbacks to Mason’s upbringing, touching on his time playing baseball (the game “has its own language and a fraternal inclusiveness for those on the inside”). In the present day, he encounters violent obstacles sure to keep readers turning the pages.
A distinctly Californian thriller that packs heavily sentimental and visceral punches.Pub Date: today
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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